Hell Bent for Leather
by Exdraghunt
Summary: Weird things have been happening in Hollywood. The Trickster is back, demons from hell are after them, and a man named Johnny Blaze is at the center of it all. Done as a Collab with Wyn Anastasia
1. Chapter 1

(A/N: The Ghost Rider 'verse used here is basically comicverse set about a year after the events of the Vicious Cycle arc, with some slight nods to the Movieverse. One major change is that I've omitted the events of the Dan Ketch arc of the 90's, mainly because I haven't read them. So Johnny was in hell for 10 years rather than the canonical 2.

A/N2: For Supernatural, this is set after the episode Heaven and Hell, before the episode On the Head of the Pin.

Done as Collab with Wyn Anastasia)

Hell Bent for Leather

On a lonely desert highway in Eastern Nevada a black '67 Impala streaked down the hot two-lane blacktop perhaps doing a tad more than the seventy-mile an hour speed limit. Inside the brothers Dean and Sam Winchester were researching their latest case, or at least Sam was. Rather than being productive, Dean was singing (if you could call it that) along with his Ozzy Osbourne tape while Sam perused Police Reports on his laptop.

The younger Winchester looked over at his brother, currently in full head-banging mode, and decided that his developing headache meant that he was done waiting for the metal-fest to end. That, and their car was beginning to weave on the road.

"Dean, turn the music down!"

Dean glanced at his brother, faux innocence on his face, "Sorry, can't hear you!" he gestured uselessly at his ear.

Sam pursed his lips, then reached down and stabbed the eject button, "I've finished going through the reports. Over the last week or so, five comatose people have been found with their eyes burned out. None of them have woken up yet, I'm betting their souls are gone."

"Demon?" Dean discretely reached over and popped his tape back in.

"Maybe," Sam gave his brother a look and Dean meekly turned the volume down, "Demons don't usually just burn someone's eyes out and leave."

"An angel then?" Dean suggested, "Cas's 'vestige' burned out Pamela's eyes."

"Only Pam isn't in a coma." Sam quickly shot the theory down.

"What's more powerful that an angel? God?" Dean scoffed. Angels were walking around for the first time in two thousand years, and they seemed to believe he was important enough to drag out of Hell. But, come on, some all-powerful dude looking out him? Sure, and Sam was all unicorns and rainbows.

Dean shook the thought away and looked over at his brother, who was leaning against the window watching the desert landscape fly by, "So… Hollywood again." He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

"Dean," Sam stretched out the name warningly, "You are not going after any actresses."

"Come on Sammy! Tara was hot, and that other chick, uh, Cindy. She was very smooth."

"Wasn't her name Sandy?" Sam asked without looking at his brother.

"No, it was Cindy. Cindy. Sandy's the other one, lives up on the coast." A pleased look drifted over Dean's face as he reminisced.

Sam made a disgusted sound and went back to his laptop. He had better things to do than discuss the multitudes of women his brother had *cough* relations *cough* with.

The cockpit of the Impala was free of chatter while Sam switched his search from police reports to Hollywood tabloids. A little Men In Black maybe, but the tabloids tend to catch things that other news sources didn't. After a few minutes, he found an interesting article. "Well, that's odd."

"What's up?"

"Something happened on the set of that doctor show you like."

"Dr. Sexy MD?" Suddenly, Dean was all ears, "What happened?"

"They were filming a scene about performing a heart surgery, when one of the actresses had a heart attack," Sam skimmed the article for anything else, then looked up as at his brother, "That is way too coincidental."

Dean smirked, "I think it's time for us to sneak onto the movie sets again."

"Oh, no."

Meanwhile, in Hollywood, Johnny Blaze was whistling as he weaved in and out of traffic on his way to work. It was a beautiful, sunny day. He wasn't in Hell any more, he didn't have to worry about hunting down Lucifer, and he had a job again! Even better, it was a job working as a stunt-rider for a T.V. show. And not just any TV show, but the remake of Stunt Master. Funny how people's life could come full circle.

Johnny stopped to show his identification to the guard, smiling as he remembered Utermahole and Armstrong, the old studio guards that had hated his guts, then steered Grace toward the Stunt Master set. Life was good.

Several hours later, Johnny had finished his stunts for the day and was leaning back in his chair idly watching several other stunt men play poker when he spotted something unusual. He had gotten to know all of the actors and costumes used on Stunt Master, and so could tell quite easily that the two plainclothes men walking by the set did not belong. Wandering idly if they were lost extras from another movie, Johnny keyed into their conversation.

"I heard they were remaking Stunt Master, but I didn't think it was true." The taller one whispered to his companion.

"Whatever it is, it's not the set we're looking for," his friend hissed back.

"Oh, right."

Okay, so not extras but civilians who had snuck in. Most actors would've called security, but Johnny thought that it was rather funny and decided that, since he was finished for the day, he might as well give them a tour. They had obviously worked very hard to get here, after all.

"Hey, boys, y'all lost?" Johnny smiled as he walked over to the two men.

"No." Dean denied smoothly, "I'm a PA, just had to go pick up some stuff, you know."

"Then who's he?" Johnny looked at Sam, "PA to the PA?"

"Uh…"

Johnny laughed, "It's cool, I'm not gonna call security on y' or anything. Fact, how 'bout I give you boys a tour?"

Now Dean was suspicious, "And why would you do that?"

Johnny shrugged, "Because I'm finished for the day and have nothing better to do. Besides, if you're with me, you don't have to worry about getting kicked out."

Sam scrutinized Johnny, then nodded, "Alright. I'm Sam, this is my brother Dean."

"Coll. I'm Johnny Blaze."

At this statement, Dean's eyes widened almost comically, "The motorcycle daredevil?" He had been wondering why the man seemed so familiar.

Johnny grinned, "That's me." They started walking away towards the hub of the studio.

"So, you're one of the stunt guys for the new stunt master show?" Dean asked idly as they walked.

"Yep," Johnny turned to head for the rather impressive Universal Back Lot, "Real funny how that works; I was a stuntman on the original too."

"I think I remember that."

Sam sighed and decided to try and shift the conversation back to the brother's original mission, "So, do you know where the set for, uh, Dr. Sexy MD is?"

"Isn't that that doctor show?" Johnny frowned as he looked around, "I think I know where the set is. This way."

"Did you hear about what happened on the set last week?" Sam asked casually as they wound their way through a group of rowdy cowboys.

"The whole heart attack thing?" Johnny laughed, "Pretty funny, huh?"

"Funny?" Dean sounded rather offended, "My favorite actress had to be rushed to the hospital."

The biker shrugged, "I don' really like that show or any o' the actors. Besides, she's fine, coming back tomorrow matter o' fact." He fished around in his pocket for a moment before producing a bag of jellybeans, "Jellies?"

"Sweet!" Dean grabbed a couple and munched contentedly as they continued their private tour.


	2. Chapter 2

Night had fallen and the streets, amazingly, had begun to empty by the time Dean and Sam found themselves back in the Impala and heading to their motel. Yet again, something amazingly ironic had happened, this time a rocket being used for a car movie had misfired and dropped right onto (and destroyed) the sound stage where they were filming "Pennies from Heaven." Unfortunately, the scene was so swamped with firefighters, studio execs, and curious onlookers by the time they got there that spotting the Trickster bordered on impossible. They were still on their original question, who is the Trickster?

"I think it's Johnny," Sam said after a moment's consideration.

"Why do you say that? He seems like a nice guy," Dean, usually the one to start accusing willy-nilly, seemed a little hurt that his television hero was being lampooned.

"Tell me, when was he a stuntman for the original Stuntmaster T.V. show?"

Dean drummed his fingers on the wheel as he thought back, "That was in the late Seventies. He joined halfway through the show's run, but he was famous before that for doing record-breaking motorcycle jumps."

"If he was a professional stunt rider in the Seventies, then why does he look younger than us?" At Dean's frown, Sam continued, "And what about the Jelly Beans in his pocket, or the fact that he thought everything happening was hilarious?"

"Okay, okay, I get the point." Dean spun the steering wheel, then glanced up at a passing street sign and cursed.

"Let me guess, we're lost."

"We're not lost," Dean turned again, this time putting them into a narrow back-ally, "Okay, maybe we're lost." He put the car into reverse and was about to back up when something dropped out of the sky with a shriek and landed on the pavement in front of the car, "The hell was that?"

"I think it was a person," Sam inched up in his seat to get a better view.

Sure enough, a grungy man stood up clutching a clearly broken arm and limped down the alley as quickly as he could. In his wake, another figure dropped off the rooftops, this one landing on its feet and standing tall. Only this one wasn't a person. Incredibly, standing before them was a flaming skeleton that looked like a demon straight out of hell. And it was wearing biker leathers to boot.

"I think we found what's been burning people's eyes out," Sam and Dean scrambled for their weapons, then edged out of the car, Dean being careful not to scrape the door on the alley wall even in a potential battle situation.

Ghost Rider spotted the two brothers and inside Johnny Blaze felt a sudden chill. He hated it when he came up against people he knew. It wouldn't be the first time he had been forced

to battle someone he had thought was a friend, but it never got any easier. Worse, he could sense something on the two men. Not evil per se, but there was a definite aura of "hell" around the both of them, especially Dean. This was going to be a long night. Maybe if he just scared them off before they did something stupid and pissed Zarathos off.

Dean strode out in front of the Impala, the headlights creating an odd halo about his form. In his hands was a long twelve-gauge shotgun filled with their special salt bullets. Sam stood next to him, demon knife in hand. They didn't have time to run to the trunk of the Impala where the other weapons were kept, and would simply have to make do with what they had.

Dean leveled the shotgun at their enemy, preparing to fire, when the demon suddenly flung his hands out in front of him. A wall of Hellfire shot up in front of the demon, forcing them to leap back. What sort of demon could wield hellfire? The flames died down as quickly as they had come, obviously meant to be a frightening display rather than an attack. On the other side, the Ghost Rider had turned his back and was striding away, but the Winchester brothers would not be deterred so easily. There was the loud ch-chk of a shotgun being cocked, then Dean fired one of their special salt bullets at the demon. It exploded against Ghost Rider's back in a rather anti-climactic white puff, and caused the demon to turn back around in anger. Okay, plan number two.

"Well that didn't work," Sam muttered as Dean pulled out his silver-bullet loaded handgun. Five bullets were fired in quick succession with enough force to make Ghost Rider take several steps back, but otherwise were about as effective as the shotgun.

Alright, so the normal arsenal of weapons wasn't working. Dean frowned as the demonic biker began to stride towards them, hellfire burning dangerously high, then pulled out his silver knife and charged. He was but inches from Ghost Rider when the sound of a warped V-twin engine filled the narrow space and a flaming motorcycle from Hell vaulted over the Impala, slamming Dean in the back and sending him crashing to the ground. Even the ghost Rider seemed a bit surprised, turning to watch the Hellcycle blast past him with a plume of flame.

Grace screeched to a halt at the other end of the alley and turned to make another pass, engine growling dangerously. Without giving himself time to think, Sam pulled his own demon knife and leapt at the Rider before the demon could refocus. Ghost Rider growled in pain when the knife plunged deep into his shoulder and grabbed Sam by the throat, intending to give the human a good dose of Penance Stare, when a white hot pain flashed through his body.

Sam was dropped to the ground and he quickly got back out of strike range to watch what was happening. Apparently, his demon knife worked where the other weapons had failed. Ghost Rider reached up and pulled the melted knife out of his shoulder, then wavered unsteadily. With a puff of soot, the flaming being became an ordinary man, who collapsed over the now-normal looking motorcycle idling beside him.

This was not good. Sam gingerly knelt down to help up Dean, who now had a very bright sunburn-like tire tread right down his back. The cycle had even melted off his shirt.

"Did we win?" Dean asked wearily, looking around for their flaming enemy.

"Not quite," Sam nodded toward their unconscious biker friend, "We were fighting Johnny Blaze."

"Guess that means he's not the Trickster."

"Or a demon," Sam held up his melted demon knife, then sighed, "I suppose we should taken him to our motel."

"What? Why?"

"To question him when he wakes up. He might not be the Trickster, but he probably knows more than he's letting on." Sam carefully rolled Johnny onto his back, then picked up the smaller man with a grunt, "Come on, help me put him in the backseat."

"He's bleeding," Dean protested faintly as he opened the Impala's back door.

"The seats are scotch guarded."

Obviously, Dean was determined to say something negative, "You realize we're still lost, right?"

This Sam didn't have an answer for. Someone, else, however, did. There was a loud rumble as Johnny's motorcycle pulled up right in front of the Impala and flashed it's headlight at them, obviously trying to get some kind of message across.

"Are we seriously going to have to follow the possessed motorcycle?" Dean asked incredulously, staring at the sentient bike.

"I guess," Sam shrugged. Weirder things had happened, "We're staying at the motel six out by highway, do you know where that is?"

The motorcycle answered by squeaking past the Impala on the passenger side and revving its engine insistently.

"I hope it knows where it's going," Dean muttered as he climbed into driver's side.


	3. Chapter 3

(A/N: Sorry for the long wait. This chapter was really giving me grief. Having college midterms didn't help either.)

Following a rider-less motorcycle through the streets of Hollywood was not an easy task, even in the wee hours of the morning, but somehow Dean managed it. Soon, they had arrived at the rundown motel 6. Grace parked herself quite docilely at the edge of the parking lot while Sam went in to pay, headlight seeming to watch all they did as Johnny was carried into their first floor room. Okay, the possessed motorcycle was officially creepy.

Sam took a couple minutes to strip Johnny of his jacket and shirt, then taped up the large wound in the man's shoulder and tied him to the room's desk chair, drawing a set of wards around his feet. Just in case. Dean, meanwhile, was in the bathroom, trying to see his back in the mirror. The tattered remains of what was his favorite shirt had been thrown in the trash, and the tire tread down his back seemed to have only gotten more noticeable in the time since the fight.

"Do you need some lotion for that?" Sam asked as he walked in to wash Johnny's blood off his hands.

Dean just glared, "I don't need any of your lilac lotion-y stuff, alright?"

"Alright,"

There was a groan from the other side of the room and the two brothers shut up. Their guest was coming to.

Consciousness returned to Johnny Blaze through a haze of pain, not something entirely unusual for him. He vaguely remembered being stabbed the night before, but a knife shouldn't've had any affect on the Ghost Rider. So why did his shoulder hurt so bad?

It was when Johnny tried to reach up and cradle his shoulder that he realized that he was seated in a hard chair with his arms tied behind his back. Oh, this was not good. Johnny opened his eyes and a dingy motel room swam into focus, along with two familiar faces.

"D'n . . . ?" Johnny coughed, throat burning from the forced return transformation. He swallowed roughly, "Dean? Sam?" The whole of last night's adventure came back to him rather abruptly and he groaned, "I'm sorry 'bout last night."

"Yeah, speaking of last night, what the hell are you?" Dean asked gruffly, bypassing the meaningless chatter.

Johnny coughed again, eyes watering with the force, "Water, first . . .please?" he asked hopefully.

Sam obligingly filled a paper cup in the sink and tipped it back for Johnny to drink from.

The stunt rider licked his lips, then let out a heavy sigh. No matter how many times he had to try and explain what he was to someone, it never got any easier, "That's not a real easy question ta answer. I am the Ghost Rider, the one who walks in both worlds or something like that."

"So, a demon," Dean pushed insistently.

Johnny shook his head, "No, I'm one-hundred percent human, but sometimes I change into . . well, this great big monster." He frowned and tried to re-word what he was trying to say. This was not looking good at the moment, "Th' Ghost Rider is th' Spirit of Vengeance. From what I've figured out he's actually an agent o' heaven, though Lucifer isn't too reliable of an information source."

Hmmm . . . an agent of Heaven. Wondering vaguely whether Cas would've heard of this or not, Dean moved on to his next question, "So why choose to appear as a famous stunt biker? It's not exactly a good disguise."

"Wait, what?" Johnny blinked in surprise, "I, I don' understand. I'm not appearing as anything. I've always been a stunt rider, my daddy was one too. Zarathos is not me, he's just connected ta me."

"The real Johnny Blaze was born in 1956 in Wakugen Illinois," Sam pointed out from the bed, having done some research while Johnny was unconcious, "That would make you almost fifty, unless your Ghost Rider powers have prevented you from aging."

"Oh," His age had never really occurred to Johnny before. He had aged a bit slower than usual, probably a result of the fact he spent a decent amount of time as a vengeful demon, but no body had ever pointed it out. And there was the fact that he had escaped from Hell and ended up twenty-one again. Actually, now that he thought about it, it was a little astonishing that no one at the studio had wondered why he looked so young for someone who had assisted with the original Stuntmaster show, "Well, there's actually a good explanation for that. Y'see, a few years ago I was killed and sent ta hell. When I escaped last year, I looked twenty-one again. It's, well, it's kinda complicated." He frowned, "An' how come you're askin' me all these questions anyway? I should be the one askin' you. You two clearly ain't any more normal than I am. I can feel the aura of Hell hangin' around you both."

'Aura of Hell?' What did that mean? Dean frowned, "In case you haven't noticed, you're the one tied to the chair. You're not in a position to be asking questions. We're hunters, that's all you need to know."

"This isn't the first time someone's trussed me to a chair." And this time he wasn't surrounded by several tons of explosives either. Focusing on his left hand, Johnny managed to ignite it and easily burned through the rope around his wrists, then stood and stretched sorely, "Now, can we have a conversation like civilized men?"

Dean instantly made a grab for his shotgun, but didn't pick it up, "Okay, okay, fine. You want to talk? Me and my brother spend our time driving around, hunting down and destroying demons and evil spirits like you."

"Evil? Hey now, I'm not any different from you two," Johnny scuffed his toe over the ward drawn on the floor, then stepped over it cautiously, "Sure, I sold my soul to th' devil, but I was a kid. Now I'm trying to use this power, these abilities, for good, y' know."

"Yeah, like we haven't heard that one before."

"Wait, Dean, stop," As always, it was Sam who had to talk down his brother, "Maybe he can help us. He's got better access to the studio, he knows the town."

"See, I'm a useful guy," Johnny pulled the office chair out of the circle of the ward and sat back down, cradling his still aching shoulder, "What're you guys 'hunting' anyway? Hollywood's full of bastards, but nobody's really come to my attention in the last couple weeks, aside from the usual low-life types that is."

"It's a pagan god of sorts," Dean saw that he wasn't going to win this argument, "It's called a Trickster. They like to play deadly tricks on the upper-crust sort, bring them down a peg."

"That chick who had the heart attack, and the rocket. Well, if you're into that sort of thing Hollywood's the perfect place. Bastards all over the place that need to be taken down a notch. So, what's the plan? How do we spot this trickster thing?"

"Well, now, that's the problem," Sam admitted, "The trickster can look like anyone or anything. There's no way to know who it is until we can catch him the act."

"And you've managed to hunt this thing down before? Without being able to recognize it or anything?" Johnny asked incredulously, "Well, maybe it'll be easier this time. I can sense evil and the supernatural, so maybe I'll be able to sense this thing if I can get close enough to it."

Sam gave Dean a look that said 'see, I knew he could help' and Dean snorted, "Then what are we doing standing around here? Let's get to that studio. It's almost dawn anyway."

"And that means I gotta get to work," Johnny stood to his feet with a wince, pulling on his leather jacket and zipping it up, "Not that I'll be able to do much with my shoulder like this. Is Grace with you?"

"What, you mean your motorcycle? You named that thing Grace?" Dean recalled the possessed bike with a shudder.

"She's not a thing, and I didn't name her," Johnny stated defensively, "She came with me when I escaped from hell."

"Great, more demons," Dean threw his hands in the air and walked out of the hotel room, "Now they're possessing motorcycles."


End file.
